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A Brooklyn judge has ruled that because the New York Police Department (NYPD) used a cell-site simulator, also known by the brand name Stingray, to track down a murder suspect without a warrant, some evidence against the suspect will be thrown out. As the New York Times reports, the NYPD initially denied using such a device in this case, but later conceded that it had. Following the suspect's arrest, he was picked out of a lineup by another victim, and that's what is being tossed out.

Today, the Washington DC Court of Appeals overturned a Superior Court conviction of a man who was located by police using a cell-site simulator, or Stingray, CBS News reports. The court ruled that the defendant's Fourth Amendment rights were violated when law enforcement tracked down the suspect using his own cell phone without a warrant.

In a letter (PDF), the acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said that the agency doesn't use its Stingray mobile call-intercepting devices while enforcing immigration laws. It does deploy them when pursuing criminal suspects, however, and individual agents might use them while acting in a joint task force with other federal officers.

It's a badly kept secret that law enforcement uses fake cell phone towers, called stingrays, that can track phones and eavesdrop on communications. But one research team has taken it upon themselves to sniff them out -- and at a reasonable cost, reports Wired.

A group of Seattle-based researchers paid fifteen different rideshare service drivers $25 a week each for two months to drive around with a custom-made device in the back of their car. Called SeaGlass, it had a Raspberry Pi computer, a hotspot, an Android phone, a GPS module and a GSM modem. All totaled, each suitcase-sized box had about $500 worth of equipment inside. The team's mission was to map every cell tower that connected to both the modem and Android phone while the cars were driving through the city.

Investigators from Immigration and Custom Enforcement as well as the FBI have been using controversial cell-spoofing devices to secretly track down undocumented immigrants, court records show. According to a report the Detroit News, which obtained an unsealed federal search warrant affidavit, FBI and ICE agents in Michigan used a Stingray device to ensnare a restaurant worker from El Salvador in March. The devices, which were originally intended for counter-terrorism use, have come under fire because there are currently no clear rules governing when law enforcement is allowed to deploy them. Even in cases where authorities have a clear target in mind, they run the risk of exposing personal information of other innocent people in range.

House representatives are making good on their plans to implement clearer cellphone surveillance laws. A bipartisan group (led by House Oversight Committee chair Jason Chaffetz) has put forward two bills that would keep the use of Stingrays and other cell site simulators in check. The most prominent, the Cell Location Privacy Act, would require that law enforcement get a probable cause warrant before using one of these fake cell sites to track suspects. There would be exceptions for "exigent circumstances" and foreign intelligence gathering.

Stingrays -- those cellphone surveillance devices preferred by law enforcement agencies -- definitely broke into the mainstream public consciousness this year. And while the word is out that law enforcement agencies from California to New York have used the devices to monitor citizens for years, a new report (PDF) from the bipartisan House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows that the rules governing their usage can vary greatly from state to state or even department to department. As a result, committee chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and member Elijah Cummings (D-MD) are calling on Congress to establish "a clear, nationwide framework that ensures the privacy of all Americans are adequately protected."

The Stingray has been a controversial tool that police departments and government agencies have used to track mobile phone locations and monitor the metadata they send to cell towers. Its maker Harris Corporation has repeatedly denied requests to explain its inner workings, citing terrorist and criminal security concerns despite their frequent use without warrants. But The Intercept has acquired over 200 pages of documentation detailing several communication-intercepting setups of the company's hardware and software.

A new legal complaint filed by a Georgetown Law professor claims that law enforcement agencies using Stingray cell-site spoofing devices are in violation of standard FCC rules because they don't have the proper spectrum licenses to operate the equipment. The complaint, filed by professor Laura Moy on behalf of three different advocacy groups, specifically calls out the Baltimore Police Department for violating the Communications Act, blocking emergency 911 service and disproportionately affecting African American neighborhoods in Baltimore.

The Edmonton Police Service has fessed up to Motherboard that it owns a Stingray and that it "used the [surveillance] device in the past during investigations." After Vancouver cops admitted to using the phone tracker to investigate an abduction in 2007, the publication called up other local police stations in Canada to ask if they had also previously used one. As you can imagine, the other stations kept mum. In the US, Stingrays are a regular part of government and law enforcement agencies' surveillance arsenal. But Vancouver's and Edmonton's police services are the first law enforcement offices in Canada to confirm that they've used the device.

A federal judge has taken a stand against the use of "stingray" -- cell phone baiting surveillance devices used by the police and other government agencies. District Judge William Pauley decided to suppress evidence obtained by the stingray setup, ruling earlier this week that the defendant Raymond Lambis, charged in connection to a drug trafficking probe, had his rights violated when surveillance equipment was used without a warrant. The Drug Enforcement Administration used the tracker to find Lambis' apartment by pinging the defendant's cell phone, revealing his location down to the apartment number. "Absent a search warrant, the government may not turn a citizen's cell phone into a tracking device," Pauley wrote in the ruling.

What do you get when you mix the heart cells of a rat with silicone from breast implants and then sprinkle in a bit of gold and genetic engineering? No, not Trump's next trophy wife -- you actually get this incredible "living" robot. Developed by a team of researchers at Harvard University, the bio-engineered marvel looks, flexes and swims just like a tiny stingray.

This week marks the start of summer, and campers across the nation are getting ready to explore the great outdoors. Fortunately, it's easier than ever to go off-grid while keeping a light footprint. That means finding tents that don't mar the land and cooking methods that don't generate needless waste. It's also easier than ever to keep electronic gadgets charged throughout your trip. And, of course, nobody wants to fumble with flashlight batteries in the dark, so rechargeable and solar-powered lanterns are a big win at any camp site. Whatever goals you set for your next trip, there's a gadget out there to help you achieve it.

Stingray devices that can intercept mobile calls, track users and block signals are definitely being used in the UK, it's come to light. The first official confirmation that these "IMSI catchers" are out in the wild comes from the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), by way of a freedom of information request from The Ferret. Stringrays have been installed in two Scottish prisons (only one is still active, apparently) to jam the outgoing calls of inmates -- mobile phones being contraband behind bars and all.

Until now, New York City's police department hadn't disclosed any information about whether or not it used so-called Stingrays to monitor cell phone activity. In response to an NYCLU (NYCLU) request, the NYPD admitted that it used the devices over 1,000 times between 2008 and May 2015. What's more, NYPD doesn't have a written policy in place that guides how the tech should be used. As a refresher, Stingrays create a fake 2G cellular network that can be used to track the locations and monitor call or text activity in a certain area. Even when a specific mobile device is targeted, information from other phones in the area is still accessible.

If you had cellphone problems in Orange County within the last few years, you may have been the unwitting victim of a secret cellphone surveillance program, according to the ACLU. Since 2009, the Anaheim Police Department has used the Dirtbox, a military-grade, Stingray-type device that can be mounted on light aircraft. While airborne, it mimics a cellphone tower in order to indiscriminately intercept and record thousands of cell phone calls.

The Intercept obtained the catalog of devices used by federal and local law enforcement to collect and monitor cell phone data. The tracking hardware -- including the infamous Stingray -- in the catalog is accompanied by its capabilities including, limitations, "planning factors," price and manufacturer. From handheld pieces of electronics that can track a few phones to boxes that can target as many as 10,000 unique cellphones the list is chilling reminder that even if you're not under investigation, you're being tracked if you're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It's no secret that the FBI uses tech tools like Stingray phone trackers to investigate suspects, but it's now clear that the bureau is willing to go even further than that. Operational Technology Division lead Amy Hess (above) tells the Washington Post that the FBI uses zero-day (that is, unknown by vendors) security software exploits for investigations -- the first time any official has admitted this on the record. The outfit doesn't prefer to use these hacks given how short-lived they are, Hess says, but they're still on the table.

It looks like the Stingray tools law enforcement agencies have been using to track cellphones are even worse than we thought. They also have the ability to record your calls and access your text communications, according to Justice Department documents obtained by the ACLU. As Wired points out, that's something privacy advocates have long suspected, but these documents are the first to prove that. To refresh, Stingray devices are used by law enforcement to mimic cell towers and trick nearby phones into connecting to them, which gives up their locations. The documents note that you can also use the devices to wirelessly flash a phone's firmware and use a cellphone as a bug. Given that these documents are from 2008 though, it was most likely referring to flashing older cellphones, and not complex smartphones. Now the documents don't mean Stingray devices were actually used to record calls, they just give us a clearer sense of their abilities.

This year, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice have thankfully put into place more stringent regulations on how government agencies can use "Stingray" cellphone-tracking devices. However, we're also learning more about how widespread usage of such tools was within the government: Today, The Guardian reports that the Internal Revenue Service made purchases in 2009 and 2012 of Stingray equipment from manufacturer Harris Corporation. The documents it received as part of a Freedom of Information Act request were heavily redacted but still revealed that in 2012, the IRS paid more than $65,000 to upgrade previous Stingray equipment to a newer version called the HailStorm.

The Department of Homeland Security announced a substantial policy change Wednesday regarding how it employs cellphone-tracking tools like the Stingray system. These cell-site simulators have been in use for more than a decade. They allow law enforcement to find cell phones either by directly searching for a known device or find an unknown device by sniffing for signaling information from the simulator's immediate vicinity and triangulating that data. The new policy explicitly demands that DHS personnel acquire a warrant before deploying the devices unless an exception, such as the imminent loss of human life, destruction of evidence, or to prevent the escape of a fugitive felon. Wednesday's announcement follows a similar decision by the Department of Justice last month.

Over the last few years, we've learned that US law enforcement agencies not only regularly use "Stingray" devices to locate suspects by their cellphones, but go to great lengths to hide this activity. After extensive reporting on the subject, the Department of Justice has established an "Enhanced Policy for Cell-Site Simulators" (PDF) detailing when they can be used by federal agencies, and how. A big part of that is the requirement that agents obtain a warrant first, except in certain cases that can include ongoing hacking attempts and people in danger of death or bodily harm. Also, they can't be used to collect communications like emails or texts at all.

Autodesk finally has a game engine to go along with its design tools. The company just launched Stingray, which it built around the Bitsquid engine it bought last year. Autodesk kept the basic guts of that program -- which has already been used on titles like Gauntlet from Warner Bros -- and revamped it with a new interface. The company told Engadget that the goal was to build an engine for smaller studios that can be customized without the need for a lot of programming. At the same time, it wanted Stingray to have all the bells and whistles of competing products like Unreal Engine 4 -- physical shading, post-processing effects, a high-performance reflection system and more.

Sky News has found evidence that StingRays -- those fake cell towers American cops are so fond of -- are in active use in the UK. The news organization ran software made by a German security company to scour for StingRays currently being used London and found 20 instances within just three weeks. Eric King of Privacy International told Sky News that this is the first time "it's been shown that they're being deployed in the UK," though the watchdog organization already knew that authorities have been relying on them for years. In fact, The Guardian reported back in 2011 that the London Metropolitan Police purchased "information and communications hardware" for surveillance as far back as 2008 and 2009. The Times confirmed their existence within the country, as well, just last year.